Wow, A Wonderful Thing Happened This Morning

I managed this pose, full pigeon, in today's amazing, failed practice.

I read this blog post by J.S. Dixon. It was a guest post on Illuminated Mind. In the post, Dixon challenges readers to triple their rate of failure — to fail a lot and to fail big. That is, of course, the only way you succeed at anything from playing a musical instrument to beating an ugly, chronic illness. So this morning I vowed to fail at three things this weekend:

1. Having one of the best yoga practices of my life;

2. Topping 50 hits at this blog;

3. And helping five bipolar people to improve their wellness.

Now, none of these three is impossible. I’ve done some pretty amazing things at yoga, have had over 40 hits in one day, and have, to my knowledge, helped at least one or two bipolar people out in key moments. But none of them is particularly likely or easy. I knew when I made this pact with myself that I would have to try damn hard to do any of the three, and that, yes, I would probably fail at all three.

And that’s how I had one of the best yoga practices of my life this morning. It was wonderful. In each pose that I thought would be impossible, I dared myself to fail — and thereby succeeded well beyond what I thought I could do. That was especially true of the balancing poses. Of the three aspects of yoga — flexibility, strength, and balance — balance is definitely my weak point. But though I fell out of Lord of the Dance and Half Moon on my right side, I held both on my left. I even managed to bind in Side Angle, which takes strength, flexibility, and balance, believe me. It was an amazing practice. Almost certainly one of my best.

So now I’m very excited about failing further, and I invite you to come along with me. Fail at something this weekend, preferably publicly (I did it in front of 10 people, after all). Fail big. And see if you don’t mess up and succeed.

More later.

Love to all.

P.S. J.S. Dixon’s blog is A Little Better. I’m going to subscribe and see if I have any more breakthroughs.

Revolt and Resignation

In his collection of essays On Aging, Holocaust survivor Jean Amery said that one must meet the phenomenon of aging -- inevitable yet terrifying -- with both revolt and resignation. So it is with mental illness. To deny that I will always be manic-depressive would be true madness; at the same time, I must revolt against my condition, rejecting the idea that it defines and limits me.